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lyonbrave
Reviews
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)
Vince Vaughn As A Bad Guy??? Yeah Right
Brawl In Cell Block 99 is one of those movies that expected to be a block buster hit and failed. Just because you put Vince Vaughn in a movie does not mean it will be an automatic success. Vince Vaughn was great in Wedding Crashers and other romantic comedies, but that is the problem, he is widely known as a funny guy and to see him play anything else is just weird and awkward.
In truth, director Zahler seemed to make a big mistake in casting Vince Vaughn as the lead role because he is just not believable as a bad guy. It's also hard to believe Vince Vaughn as an athlete or any sort of boxer because he has always had baby fat.
In the opening scene he is mad at his girl so he rips the hood of her car off and throws it across the yard. This scene is so unbelievable that it makes me want to cry and laugh and makes me think I am watching a comedy instead of an action thriller. There is no way Vince Vaughn could pull-off the hood of a car like that and that scene alone set the movie up to be rather unbelievable and fake.
I just don't think because you shave a guys head and put a big generic cross on the back of their head that they suddenly are a tough guy, a drug runner, or a prisoner. I really want to like this movie because I like the career of Vince Vaughn, but for him to be cast as this charterer is a bit of a joke. Directors shouldn't just pick actors because they are famous, they should pick them because they are right for the role.
I think the writing of this film is okay, but it tries way to hard to be interesting. Considering all kinds of crazy stuff is going on, prison, cheating, drugs, kidnappings, the movie is still boring compared to other action adventure movies, like The Cell, which Vince Vaughn was also an actor in.
At the end of the day, Vince Vaughn has always been a golden boy and I cannot see him fully transform into the character Bradley Thomas.
God's Own Country (2017)
Two Isolated Heart's Come Together
God's Own Country is a film that Clearly parallels Broke Back Mountain. The movie is basically about two farmers who fall in love, just like in BBM. Broke Back Mountain was one of Hollywood's most visible gay movies of all time. It is hard to know if a gay film will ever generate as much buzz as Broke Back Mountain.
Though God's Own Country was not a blockbuster film like BBM, it is worthy of being watched, especially if you identify as a gay person. There is an honesty and purity to this film that was not in BBM. Perhaps, the love between Alec Secareanu's charchter and Josh O'Connor's is more believable because they are not big Hollywood names. For the most part both of these actors are widely unknown, though both men must be fairly talented actors to play gay so convincingly.
The pace of the movie is rather slow, which is why I could not give the film a higher rating. There are times the movie is simply not engaging or captivating enough to hold an audiences attention, though the overall movie is good, calling a movie remarkable simply because it has gay characters is a bit of an insult to film. A good film needs more than gay characters to be noteworthy and as a rule gay film's are rarely, good. That is not to say that Francis Lee did not write a strong artistic piece, it's just not very commercial of popcorn friendly, but not all movies have to be.
What I will say is the characters end up having sex through believable ways that are not romanticized. It's nice that the charterers are focused on each other and not in engagements with women. As bold as film tries to be most film still shows gays in the closet, instead of being free to love. At least this movie has an element of freedom in the characters spirits and strength towards how they love each other.